Hidden moth

Chapter 306: Don’t Predict the Secrets of Heaven

The starting station of the high-speed rail ticket is Qiyuan and the final destination is Hanning City, Zhouyuan Province.

It takes 1,300 kilometers to drive from Qiyuan City to Hanning City where Fengwei Township is located on the highway. Including the time for stopping and resting, it takes about a whole day.

The two places are now connected by high-speed rail, with direct flights available, and it only takes seven and a half hours to get there from Qiyuan.

He Kao originally thought it was very far away, but he didn't expect it to happen so quickly. This is the infrastructure of the industrial and information age. If it were in ancient times, it would take an unknown amount of time, and ordinary people might not even be able to reach it in their entire lives.

If the weather conditions are good, the faster way is to take a plane, which takes more than two hours. Of course, the fastest way is to use the power of the stealth moth, which can reach the destination in an instant.

However, Old Man Jiang’s arrangement was not any of the above methods. Instead, he booked two train tickets for him.

The first ticket departed from Qiyuan, traveled west into Bachuan Province, and changed trains in a remote county town. The second ticket departed from this small county town, crossed the Daba Mountains, and arrived in Hanning City.

The two tickets were not for the same day, and He Kao had to stay in that small county town for two nights. The journey that should have taken only a short walk now took him two days.

He Kao called Elder Jiang, but the call was unsuccessful. He thought that he must be hiding in the cave again. He really wanted to go to Jinghua Cave to find out what was going on, but he held back.

Jiang Daozhen must have had his reasons for making such arrangements. Dealing with a great mathematician from Lingxi Sect is sometimes like this. The other party is always mysterious and unwilling to explain things clearly in advance.

This actually makes sense, because if some things were said in advance, they might not happen, which is a bit like the observer effect in quantum states.

Do macroscopic objects also have intuitively understandable quantum states?
Yes, of course there is. A very simple thought experiment can prove that this experiment is not the famous "Schrödinger's Cat" in later generations, but the "response of prophecy" that all Lingxi disciples must understand.

If there is a fortune teller who predicts that Zhang San will be hit by a rotten egg thrown from downstairs when he goes out tomorrow, if he tells Zhang San, Zhang San will not go out tomorrow and will avoid the rotten egg.

So, are his predictions still accurate? If he doesn't say it, it's accurate; if he says it, it's not accurate; or if he listens to it, it's not accurate; if he doesn't listen to it, it's accurate! This is just an analogy; what actually happened was far more complicated than this example.

There is another popular saying about "the response to the prophecy", which is - the secret of heaven cannot be revealed.

Although He Kao has not yet mastered the art of spiritual intuition, as a hidden moth, he must have a deep understanding of the details of each technique, so he also knows what the response to the prophecy is.

That afternoon, He Kao got off the bus in Dangguan County in the northeast of Bachuan Province. It is a remote small county with a population of just under 300,000, and transportation there has historically been very inconvenient.

Now, due to the large-scale infrastructure development in the East Country, a high-speed rail line also passes through the county, which is tantamount to opening a portal.

Unfortunately, the high-speed rail station is located fifteen kilometers away from the main urban area, which is quite far for a small county town.

This is not a problem with the line, but is deliberately planned this way. The local government hopes to drive the development of surrounding areas with the high-speed rail station as the center, that is, it plans to build a new urban area.

It’s a pity that the local area has undergone large-scale real estate development for more than ten years, and the potential of a small county town is very limited. Even if it had not been hit by the epidemic, it would have been difficult to build a new district in the surrounding area.

So even though the high-speed rail station has been completed for five or six years, when you look out after exiting the station, it is still a wasteland. Apart from the convenience stores and fast food restaurants inside the station, there is not even a simple house selling wontons nearby.

Because the surrounding area is all reserved land owned by the local government and has not yet been developed, after exiting the station, the only sights were taxis and motorized rickshaws soliciting passengers. He Kao left on foot without taking a taxi.

In fact, He Kao had been to this area a long time ago, and his footsteps had illuminated the entire map of the East Country and a large area overseas, but he had only passed through at night and had not stopped there on purpose.

Dangguan County is located on the southern slope of the Daba Mountains. There are large continuous mountains in the area, with large altitude differences and very complex climatic conditions. There are not many areas suitable for living and farming.

In the mountains of this area, there is a large medicinal field that has been managed by disciples of the magic school since ancient times. It is very large and is also called the Bashan Medicinal Field. It is home to a lineage of magicians.

The Bashan medicinal field is many times larger than Lin Qingshuang's Qihuang Lingyuan, and its shape is also different. It has no walls and looks like a completely natural mountain field.

There once lived a hermit here, a patriarch of the Guanshen sect named Zhao Sanjin. The nearby Daba Mountains abounded in various medicinal herbs, and he would often lead a group of disciples in the mountains to collect herbs and refine elixirs, teaching them techniques and methods.

Miraculous herbs grow naturally, often in hard-to-reach places, requiring only the most skilled to harvest them. The reason for this is perhaps simple: if they were easily accessible, they would have been harvested long ago.

On the other hand, rare and precious elixirs are often grown in special environments. Even if they are moved to another place, the seeds may not germinate, or the same plants may no longer have the corresponding effects.

Zhao Sanjin had been collecting herbs and refining elixirs in this area for centuries, and his master and forefather had certainly been cultivating here even earlier. This lineage's legacy encompassed not only secret techniques but also a wide range of knowledge related to elixirs.

They have detailed records of the distribution and growth of various medicinal herbs in the vast and sparsely populated mountains around here, including plant communities, environmental causes, the most suitable years for picking, annual maturity conditions, etc.

Of course, the spiritual medicine cannot be harvested all at once, but its natural community must be protected. Those that can be cultivated should be cultivated as much as possible, allowing them to grow in the natural environment. In key areas, magic arrays should be arranged using the natural terrain.

In recent years, his descendants have used secular connections and combined national policies to take advantage of the situation and designate this large mountainous area as a nature reserve and national forest park.

The Bashan Herb Fields were too vast to be enclosed like the Qihuang Spiritual Garden. Successive sorcerers of this lineage had left simple markings along their edges, serving only as spiritual reminders. Any cultivator above the Third Realm who entered that area would sense it.

If you pick a few common herbs for your own use or in an emergency, that's fine... but you can't move rare and precious herbs in clearly marked areas.

In terms of seniority, Zhao Sanjin is two generations older than the current head of Guanshen Sect, Ye Fenghuang. He also served as the head of Guanshen Sect before and after the establishment of New East Kingdom. After abdicating, he returned to Daba Mountain to live in seclusion and has not been heard from for a long time.

He may have passed away long ago, but some say he is still alive. If he is still alive, he should be over 140 years old.

Of course, Zhao Sanjin had disciples and successors, but few of his children and grandchildren achieved success in cultivation. However, among his great-grandchildren, there was a high-level cultivator named Zhao Ci.

Zhao Ci is a disciple of his disciple's great-grandson, now 32 years old. He broke through the fourth level of cultivation three years ago and is considered a rising star in the magic sect. He is also regarded as the direct branch leader by this group of magicians.

Recalling these stories of the art in his mind, He Kao walked to the hotel.

The place he stayed in was booked by Jiang Daozhen for him. It was called Beiyuan Manor, a garden-style hotel built on the mountain, about ten kilometers away from the main urban area. It was of high quality and charged a high fee.

Although it is just a small county town, people often hold activities and organize meetings here. Beiyuan Manor not only has local customers, but also occasionally hosts national conferences and events.

He Kao saw coded signs outside the gate of Beiyuan Manor and in the hotel lobby that only disciples of the magic sect could understand, meaning that the owner was not at home.

This is obviously for the disciples of the Shu Sect to see. The subtext is that fellow Shu Sect members passing by are welcome to please feel free to do as they please, and the owner of this place apologizes that he cannot personally come out to receive them for the time being.

Only then did he realize that this hotel was actually owned by a disciple of the magic sect, and that the operator should be a magician from Zhao Ci's lineage.

Since he saw such a coded mark, He Kao would certainly not try to establish connections with anyone else.

The restaurant at the villa serves local specialties, and regular customers can even try game from the Daba Mountains if they ask. It's just that the place is a bit out of the way, and there are almost no other takeaways within two kilometers.

There is a small path leading into the mountains behind Beiyuan Manor. There is a warning sign for the protected area on the side of the road, indicating that this is a closed protected area and warning that there are wild animals.

Not far up the mountain, you will enter the territory of Bashan Medicine Garden.

He Kao didn't know why Elder Jiang arranged for him to live here. The owner was not at home, and the only place here related to magic and sorcery was the nearby Bashan Medicine Garden. Did he want him to go to Bashan Medicine Garden to see it for himself?
But who is He Kao? He has been to all sorts of places, including the snowy forests and deserts, the rainforest wetlands, the beautiful valleys and peaks, and the cold plateaus. What rare animals and auspicious flowers has he not seen?

But if not, what other plans does he have?

He Kao couldn't figure it out anyway, so he just went for a walk in the mountains. He didn't look carefully when he passed by, but just remembered some of the places where he stayed.

He was like a passing tourist from another place. After having his buffet breakfast the next day, he strolled around with his backpack on his back. When he found a deserted place, he went into the woods and into the mountains, and then walked diagonally onto a mountain trail.

He Kao did not use his magical power of hiding the moth, he just walked on solid ground. He had a whole day and was not in a hurry to travel, he just came to visit.

Climbing up the small hill in the dense forest, when crossing the ridge line, I suddenly felt a sense of consciousness. Someone was using the natural earth spirit lingshu as a mark here to remind passers-by that they had entered the Bashan Medicine Garden.

Ordinary people certainly can't notice it, but warlocks above level three will understand that this is a boundary marked by someone.

Going further, there are no traces of the road. The mountains are deep, the forests are dense, and the peaks are stacked. The height difference is huge, and the temperature and humidity vary greatly. Sometimes it is shrouded in clouds and mist, and sometimes the sun is shining brightly. When you turn into the valley, it starts to drizzle.

After breaking through the fifth realm of cultivation, he mastered the method of controlling his form. Although he could not fly, as long as his toes had a little leverage, he could climb cliffs and even wade through water, so the terrain could not hinder He Kao's steps.

As he went deeper and deeper, He Kao saw many kinds of medicinal herbs, but most of them were not elixirs for spiritual practice.

The elixir that can assist in spiritual practice is related to many factors such as age, longevity environment, etc. Sometimes even the same species may not meet the requirements.

For example, the cold water pearls formed in mother-of-pearl oysters cannot all be as cold as snow.

Even when he occasionally came across useful spiritual herbs, He Kao didn't pick them. This was the Bashan Medicinal Garden after all. Although it looked like an open, natural forest, it had actually been maintained and cultivated for centuries.

He just came to observe today.

Continuing forward, it is a place that is difficult for people to reach. Except for those who have achieved success in cultivation like him, even the herbalists in the mountains will not come here. After crossing the steep cliff, there is a gentle slope down. In the valley and forest ahead, there is actually a large open flower and grass field.

He Kao finally discovered traces left by the sorcerer. The trees in this area had clearly been cleared, leaving such a large patch of flowers and plants growing in the sun. It was only the end of April, and already wild fruits were ripening.

This valley is full of these wild fruits, slightly larger than cherries, shaped like hawthorns and crabapples, with long stalks. They grow on the branches of small shrubs in a fan-shaped pattern, and at first glance, they look like the crest of a phoenix...

**
(End of this chapter)